Among the country's few licensed female pilots in the 1920s, Amelia Earhart readily consented in 1928 to travel as a passenger on a nonstop flight from Newfoundland to the British Isles. When the plane landed in Wales, she found herself catapulted to fame as the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air. Regarded as a symbol of the new female emancipation, she was soon a leading spokesperson for the infant aviation industry, and in 1932 she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Five years later, eager for "just one more flight," she and navigator Fred Noonan took off on an around-the-world trip to gather data that might lead to improvements in long-distance air travel. On July 2, they disappeared over the South Pacific and were never heard from again.

Earhart began posing for this portrait at about the time she was preparing to make her solo transatlantic flight of 1932. The flight, however, brought the sittings to an end before the picture was done, and artist Edith Scott had to rely on a photograph in order to finish it.